Social Media Communication by Hungarian Anti-establishment Parties in the Context of Italian Movimento Cinque Stelle

Abstract

The topic of e-democracy is a steadily growing issue in political science. Political parties exerting a more direct political representation rely on social media use to a great extent. In the present study a comparative analysis of the social media communication is conducted of two Hungarian anti-establishment parties, the Politics Can Be Different (LMP) and Momentum taking as a role model the Italian Movimento Cinque Stelle. The method used for analysis is a mixed approach where quantitative and qualitative aspect are both considered. The scope of the research is 1st March 2018 and 31st December 2019. The analysis is based on contents shared by the examined political parties after identifying their peak periods with respect to the social media use. The studied contents are extracted from the official Twitter profiles of the LMP and Momentum. A filtering process based on the contents’ sentiment score and influence score is performed. Research findings show that the two Hungarian parties rely on the social media to communicate their ideologies and political programs, and both have some potential to further develop towards becoming cyber parties. Momentum focuses on European issues, while exhibiting a more direct, and a more aggressive communication against the current administration of Hungary. LMP reflects more on local issues and use digital tools to promote campaigns related to environmental protection issues. Evaluating their social media communication Momentum has more potentials to develop to a cyber party becoming a role model for Hungary in this recently emerging tendency of anti-establishment political parties.